Friendship Ties Them Together
by DARWIN51
Summary: Tragedy strikes Nell, can the team help her? Can they even get her to tell her problem? Major DENSI and NERIC and Sam/Callen friendship banter and Nell/Kensi friendship.


A/NSorry about any confusion before, for some reason the page breaks in Word don't show up on fanfiction. Now I've tried everything from dashes to squiggles but nothing is showing up so sections are broken by xxx's I hope that shows up. Enjoy!

xxxxxxx

The team stood around the table in the OSP center, talking about their latest case when Nell walked in. "Sorry I'm late" She muttered. Normally, the first thing she did was set her bag down near her chair, but today, she wasn't carrying a bag. Instead, she had a white bandage wrapped around her entire left forearm, and a piece of butterfly tape on her forehead.

"What happened to you?" Sam asked, and the whole team turned to look at her.

She stared back at them for a moment, then said "I'd rather not talk about it right now." She made her way to her chair and Eric caught her up on what was going on.

"As you can see on the video footage here, a man named Calvin Alvarez is talking to another man whose identity is still unknown." The whole team watched the security camera footage as the man the conversation seemed to get more intense, a few pushes and shoves, then the other man drew his gun and shot Alvarez, then fled the scene.

"Right now Alvarez is in a coma, so he's not much help to us. Finding this man is our top priority." Eric said. "Did you run facial recognition?" Callen asked. "I tried, but there's not exactly a clear image of his face."

"Well, try again. Sam and I will head to the scene; see if anyone there knows anything. Kensi and Deeks, go talk to Alvarez's wife, see if he had any enemies." Callen instructed, and the team immediately split up. Once everyone else had left OSP center, Eric gave a small laugh.

"What?" Nell asked.

"Nothing, it's just, that was like a perfect Scooby-Doo moment, Callen all but said "Let's split up, gang."

Nell smiled "Yeah, he does that, doesn't he?"

Eric leaned back in his chair "So what are we going to do?"

"Callen said to run the facial recognition again."

"If it didn't work the first time, it's not going to work the second." Eric replied.

"True. True." Nell thought for a moment, then glanced at Eric. He had a devious smile on his face. "No. Not now, not in the middle of the day!" Nell said, knowing exactly what he was thinking.

"Why not? We'll just be really quiet."

"What if someone catches us?"

"Maybe they'll want to join. C'mon." Eric pulled out the Wii remotes and steering wheels, and turned on Mario Kart on the big screen.

"Fine." Nell rolled her chair over to get a remote from Eric, and soon enough they were laughing quietly and whispering curse words at the game. "Eric! What the heck! Why'd you hit me with a green shell?"

"All's fair in love and go karting." Eric replied.

"I'm on your team, idiot." Nell elbowed him in the ribcage.

"So?"

After a few more races, Nell shoved his remote, effectively sending him off a cliff.

"Hey, what was that for! I was in first!" Eric cried.

"All's fair in love and go karting." Nell replied with a smile.

xxxxxxx

"Jesus Christ, Kensi. Why did I let you drive?" Deeks asked.

"Oh cut it out, drama queen. My driving is _not_ that bad." Kensi replied.

Deeks turned around in his seat to look out the back window of Kensi's car. "You almost hit an old lady!"

"I saw her! I was not going to hit her, calm down Deeks."

"Really? Really Kens, because she's giving us the finger right now."

"Where?" Kensi asked, looking in her rearview mirror. "I don't see anything."

"Yeah maybe she would still be in sight if you weren't driving so fast!"

"Well if you don't like my driving, you can just get out right now." Kensi said.

Deeks looked out the passenger window where the ground was just a blur.

"What?" Kensi asked. "What are you doing?"

"I'm considering it!"

"Oh, shut u-"

"You just missed the turn." Deeks interrupted her.

"No I didn't. It's up here, you're just trying to make me think I'm a bad driver huh?"

"I just wanna get there in one piece!" Deeks replied as Kensi slammed the brakes at a stop sign. "You did that on purpose. Just to scare me."

"It worked, didn't it?"

xxxxxxx

Sam and Callen walked down a busy street, the same street where Alvarez had been shot. "Alright, so we're looking for a bar called Malone's, it should be here somewhere." Callen said. Sam gave a nod towards a display of televisions in an electronics store. "Hey G, you ever gonna get a TV?" He asked.

"What, so I can be like Deeks and watch crap like "Storage Wars" or "Extreme Couponing" or "Jersey Whore"? No thanks." Callen replied.

Sam gave a small laugh, and they kept walking. After another minute, Sam said "Wait, you do know it's called Jersey Shore, right?"

"Really?" Callen asked.

Sam just laughed even harder. "Hey, this is it." Callen tapped his arm and pointed to the sign above the door of a small pub. They walked in, and approached the bar. A young man was wiping down the bar, and when they walked over, he threw the towel onto his shoulder and said "I'm Woody, can I get you guys anything to drink?"

"Were you here last night, around 10:30?" Callen asked.

"Uh, no but my boss was. Why, did you lose something? We have a lost and found-"

"Can we talk to him?"

"Uh, sure. Just one moment." Woody walked off towards a back room, and soon another man walked over to them.

"Hey, I'm Sam. I own this bar, what can I do for you?"

"We were wondering if you saw this man last night around 10:30?" Sam asked, placing a photo of Alvarez on the counter.

"Yeah, I remember him. He was the one who was shot, right?"

"Do you remember anything else about him, who was he with, were there any disputes, anything like that?" Callen asked.

"No, can't say that I do." The owner replied.

"Do you remember anything about the man who shot him?"

"Yeah, yeah, I remember now, he was with this girl, a pretty looking young lady. He was tryin ta get her to leave with him, but she wasn't so into it, and he started to get rough with her, so that guy in the picture there stepped in and stopped him, then the two guys got in a big fight, and I told them to take it outside." The owner said.

Callen nodded "Thanks for your help. If you remember anything else, call this number." Callen left a card with the man and Sam and Callen walked out. "I don't think this was a targeting, I think Alvarez was just being a good Samaritan and got unlucky." Callen said.

xxxxxxx

The team returned back to OSP, after the case was handed over to LAPD. They were at their desks in the bullpen, and Eric and Nell came down the stairs to hang out like they always did after a case. They chatted a bit before Eric finally said what everyone wanted to know "So what happened to your arm?" he said to Nell.

"Um." She said "It's kind of a long story."

"No one's hurting you, right? You can tell us if that's the problem." Sam said protectively.

"No, no, it's nothing like that, I'm fine, really, it's just…" She took a deep breath "My apartment building burned down last night. I lost everything. And like an idiot, I didn't insure anything, so I have basically nothing."

The team was immediately interested, "Oh my god, are you okay?" Kensi asked. "How did the fire start?" Deeks said almost at the same time. "I'm fine." Nell insisted "The apartment above mine had a stove fire or something, and I was asleep, but I woke up in time when my ceiling caved in, I put my arm up to protect myself, and it got burned. But I'm okay, fortunately no one was hurt too bad."

"You didn't manage to save anything? There's nothing left you can still use?" Deeks asked.

"Deeks, the whole building burned down. It's a pile of ashes. I'm sorry, I just, I don't know what to do. Everything's gone. _Everything._" She sounded like she was on the verge of tears "These aren't even my clothes.."

"I'm so sorry." Callen said quietly, putting a gentle hand on her back.

Nell shook her head "It's really not as bad as it sounds, I still have my car and everything in it, and everything in my locker here. Plus, I think I have at least one change of clothes at a friend's house." She said.

"Do you need a place to stay?" Kensi asked.

"Um, my plan was just to go to a hotel or someth-"

"Come stay with me. I promise it's better than a hotel, and I have a lot of cookies." Kensi said.

Nell considered it for a minute, before saying, "Actually, that would be really great. Thank you. I haven't checked my locker here yet, because I'm afraid there's less than I remember."

"Are you going to check it? Maybe there's _more_ stuff than you thought." Eric said optimistically.

"Thanks, Eric. Maybe."

"Well I have to go get my stuff, Nell, you wanna come with and check that locker?" Kensi asked.

"Yeah, thanks." Nell followed her to the locker room. She reached her locker and stood in front of it nervously. Kensi opened hers just a few lockers down. Nell decided to try and distract her mind while she opened her locker, so she casually said "So what's going on between you and Deeks?"

Kensi froze, then forced herself to keep acting normal, and replied "Um, I don't know what you mean."

Nell gave her a look "Oh, so you guys can tease Eric and I all the time, but I'm not even allowed to _ask?"_

Kensi rolled her shoulders and pulled her bag out of her locker. She focused intently on the contents of her bag while she said "Well. Um. I'll admit some people have told us we have a "thing", but…I can never really tell when he's just joking or when he's actually maybe flirting with me."

"I think he's just a flirt. He flirts with everyone, it's just what he does, but I definitely see something different when he's around you."

Ignoring the second comment, Kensi said "What, so he's flirted with _you?_"

Nell was still staring at her closed locker. "No, and I could be wrong when I say that's just the type of person he is. Not in the "jerk" kind of sense, but he's just…poking fun."

"And what do you mean it's different when he's around me?"

Nell sighed and took a step back. "Look, I only took two years of psychology in high school and college, and it's likely that some of Nate has rubbed off on me, but I see Deeks joking around with you because he's afraid how you might react if you found out he actually meant some of the things he said, and he's afraid you might not feel the same way."

Kensi stopped going through her bag, and sat down on the bench. "Wow, that was deep. And yes, you sound just like Nate." She paused, thinking back on all the things Deeks said that she now realized could have gone two ways. "What else did you see?"

Nell looked around, like Kensi wasn't supposed to know about what she was about to say. "Well, once I saw him giving some other guy the "don't hurt my partner or else" talk, and the man asked if Hetty knew about you guys, then he said "you're just lying to yourself" or something like that."

"Oh." Kensi absorbed this information. She started going through her bag again "Well I guess it's just natural that partners are protective…" Kensi looked up and noticed that Nell had opened her locker and was standing in front of it, staring at it with a blank expression.

"Nell? Are you okay? What did you find?" Kensi slowly walked over and followed Nell's gaze. Inside her locker was some neatly folded clothes, a bag that looked empty, a pair of sneakers, a water bottle, and some wires tangled on the bottom. Kensi laid a gentle hand on Nell's shoulder, waiting to see her reaction. "So is it better or worse than you expected?"

Nell was quietly staring, completely motionless. Finally, she said "…About the same." She sat back on the bench. "I don't really know what I was expecting. But this…this isn't more and it isn't less, I have no idea what I was expecting, really. It's…" Nell put her head down. "It's just…just…just…_scary_ to know that this is all I have left."

Kensi sat next to her and rubbed her back. "It's okay. It's okay. You can get new stuff, all that's important is that you're okay. You're safe, everyone would much rather you lose all your stuff, hell, we'd rather lose all _our _stuff, than lose you."

Nell smiled. "I can work with this. I can. Thank you." She began to pack the empty bag.

" Let's go. You're welcome to stay at my apartment as long as you need. And by the way, we know about your Mario Kart thing."

"What Mario Kart thing?" Nell asked innocently

"You know I know."

"…Who knows?"

"Just the team. Hetty not included. As far as I know…yeah she probably knows."

"Just don't tell anyone else?" Nell asked.

"Absolutely. …On one condition. The team and I have thought this through, and we decided to put up this offer: we won't tell anyone about it if we all get to play after work every Wednesday."

Nell hesitated. "I'm going to have to consult my partner before agreeing to those conditions." She said with a smile.

"I don't think you have much of a choice."

"Are you blackmailing us?"

"Maybe." Kensi said.

"Don't forget, Eric and I have a _lot_ of dirt on you guys. All of you."

"You _what!_"

"I didn't say anything." Nell denied as they started to walk out.

"Um, yes, you clearly did. I want to know what kind of stuff you know about Deeks-wait-what do you know about _me?_"

"Nothing. I said nothing. I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, come on!" Kensi said as they walked out of the Mission. "Tell me!"

"No."

"Tell me!"

"No."

A/N sorry it ended so abruptly, I kind of imagined their voices fading off while they walked away. Please review!


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